Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON -- The Voting Rights Act, which has protected minority voters from discrimination since its passage more than 40 years ago, appeared headed for an easy reaffirmation in the House yesterday - until conflicts old and new clouded its future. Amid wide bipartisan support - the House Judiciary Committee approved the measure last month by a 33-1 vote - House Republican leaders scheduled floor debate yesterday, hoping to use the bill's passage for an election-year outreach to minority voters.

On this Memorial Day weekend, as we remember with deepest gratitude the sacrifice of America's military heroes, we also offer our thoughts and prayers for the victims of the Oklahoma tragedy. I've dedicated a half-dozen columns to the single most dangerous federal law passed in many years, the (not so) Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare"). History buffs observe that landmark pieces of legislation typically pass Congress with some degree of bipartisan support. (See, e.g., the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Medicare Act of 1965)

NAACP officials did not uncork the champagne after the House voted to reauthorize the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. And there's good reason why: The law is not out of the legislative woods yet. The Senate still has to reauthorize it, and there's a core of doubting, wavering and even hostile senators that could waylay reauthorization. Their gripe is the same as that of House Republicans who stalled the legislation for more than a week. They say it punishes the South for past voting-discrimination sins, and they don't like the idea of bilingual ballots.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is alleged to be one of the great intellects of conservative jurisprudence, but his comments during oral arguments over a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act displayed all the mental acuity of a third-tier talk radio bozo. Shelby County, Ala., is making the case against the voting law. Section 5 of the act empowers the federal government to negate new local and state voting rules if they would lead to discrimination against minority voters.

WASHINGTON -- In an intensely competitive election year, this was supposed to be the issue virtually everyone in Congress could agree on: renewing civil rights-era laws protecting minorities' access to the ballot box. But on the cusp of a scheduled vote tomorrow that White House strategists and other top Republicans once hoped would symbolize a modern-day GOP eager to attract more blacks and Latinos, a group of increasingly vocal Capitol Hill conservatives is...

WASHINGTON -- One day before President Bush addresses the NAACP for the first time during his presidency, two Democratic senators urged yesterday that those attending the meeting to hold the administration accountable for renewing - and enforcing - the Voting Rights Act. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois warned NAACP delegates to be cautious of any civil rights promises Bush offers when speaking to the group today. The senators criticized Republicans for allowing the landmark 1965 voting act to nearly expire and said the Justice Department has failed to aggressively pursue allegations of disenfranchisement.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been called the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in American history. Unlike the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places and employment but granted Congress only limited powers of enforcement, the Voting Rights Act gave the federal government direct oversight of election procedures in 16 states and counties, mostly in the South, that had a long history...

In one of the year's most anticipated decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that gives the federal government the power to block states with a history of discrimination from changing election laws in ways that limit minorities' access to the ballot. Unfortunately, rather than affirm the constitutionality of the act, as civil rights groups had hoped, the court decided the issue on the narrowest possible grounds, making future challenges to the law almost inevitable.

This time last year, virtually no one could have predicted that today both of the nation's two major political parties would be headed by African-Americans. Democrat Barack Obama's historic election as the first black president and Michael S. Steele's elevation to chairman of the Republican National Committee mark a watershed in race relations in this country that is literally unprecedented. Yet neither man could have hoped to achieve his present position without the political empowerment of African-Americans made possible by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed blacks across the South access to the ballot.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court declined yesterday to hear cases from New York and Washington state on whether states violate the federal Voting Rights Act when they refuse to let felons vote. But with 48 states, all except Maine and Vermont, disenfranchising millions of people who have been convicted of crimes, the issue remains alive in the lower courts, and the justices' action did not rule out accepting a future case. The Voting Rights Act prohibits states from applying any "voting qualification or prerequisite" in a manner that has a racially discriminatory effect.

How fitting that after Republicans lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, plus lost the popular vote for Congress by over a million votes - and only hold on to their majority in the House by vigorous gerrymandering - the Supreme Court is poised to further erode our constitutional right to vote ("High court split clouds Voting Rights Act's fate," Feb.28). When has this activist court ever missed a chance to legislate losing right-wing Republican policies from the bench?

One day, many years ago, I was working in my college bookstore when this guy walks in wearing a T-shirt. "White Power," it said. I was chatting with a friend, Cathy Duncan, and what happened next was as smooth as if we had rehearsed it. All at once, she's sitting on my lap or I'm sitting on hers -- I can't remember which -- and that white girl gives this black guy a peck on the lips. In a loud voice she asks, "So, what time should I expect you home for dinner, honey?" Mr. White Power glares malice and retreats.

Much has changed in America since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was first approved, and we can't blame those living in the 16 states that must get approval from the Justice Department or a federal court in order to revise their election laws for feeling the weight of history. The Deep South of the 21 s t century is not the same as the days of poll taxes, literacy tests and assassinated civil rights leaders. But how different is it today from seven years ago? That's when Congress last renewed one of this country's most important pieces of civil rights legislation - including the section that places this burden of proof on states with long histories of suppressing minority voters.

Well, I sure got that one wrong. Four years ago, on the eve of the last presidential election, I wrote in this space of how the country has spent much of the last three decades "re-litigating" the 1960s, arguing over the changes wrought in that decade. As far as social justice is concerned, of course, the 1960s stand second only to the 1860s as the most profoundly transformative decade in American history. It was in those years that black folks came off the back of the bus, women came out of the kitchen, Hispanics came off the margins and gay people first peeked beyond the closet.

As we approach the 2012 election, the fear that many Americans will be denied their right to vote is increasingly becoming a reality. A growing number of states have enacted voter suppression laws that will require identification to vote, impose stricter voter registration requirements or prevent early voting or same-day voting - tactics that will push out many Americans from the electorate, particularly the elderly, people with disabilities, low-income...

So here's how it is: You have no driver's license because you have nothing to drive. You have no passport because you've never been out of the country. You have no other photo ID because you have no bank account. You work and get paid under the table, a wad of cash sliding from hand to hand. It is a life lived in the margins. And if South Carolina and a number of other GOP-controlled states have their way, it will be a life to which a significant new impediment will be added: You will not be able to vote.

BALTIMORE Voting issues to be discussed at library program Thursday Maya M. Rockeymoore, vice president of research for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, will discuss a variety of voting issues at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Wheeler Auditorium, 400 Cathedral St. Rockeymoore, who earned a doctoral degree in political science and public policy at Purdue University, will talk about voting in the United States, the 15th and...

House members who spent all day Thursday trying to hollow out the Voting Rights Act ably demonstrated why what were once temporary provisions of the three-decade-old civil rights legislation are still so vital. The solid bipartisan majorities by which those attempts were rebuffed, and the overwhelming tally by which the House voted to extend law's protections for another 25 years, failed to obscure the ugly sentiments still lurking in some quarters. Take the delegation from Georgia, for example.

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past? Not according to the Department of Justice, which recently rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters to show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots. Justice says the law discriminates against minorities. The Obama administration said, "South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting.

Editor: The U.S. has made great strides in the area of civil rights. Over the past 100 years, numerous laws have been passed to protect citizens from discrimination based on religion, sex, race, age, disability and veteran status. These laws include the 19th amendment to the Constitution, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the American with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.